23MAY 2016 :www.navynews.co.uk

On the afternoon of Wednesday May 31 1916, the British and German Navies met for the only time in the Great War in a full fleet encounter. At stake: control of the North Sea and Britain’s place in the war. They met 90 miles off the coast of the Danish region by which the clash is known in the English-speaking world: the Battle of Jutland.

A century on from this titanic struggle between mighty battleships – “castles of steel” as Sir Winston Churchill dubbed them – we recount the story of that battle through the eyes of those who were there on both sides.

This is the Battle of Jutland as told by the men of steel.

JUTLAND100TH ANNIVERSARY

MEN OF STEEL

THE GREATEST NAVAL BATTLE EVER FOUGHT IN EUROPEAN WATERS: TITANIC STRUGGLE BETWEEN BRITISH AND GERMAN FLEETS.

250 SHIPS CLASH IN NORTH SEA♦

Thunder of guns heard 100 miles away

FEARFUL BRITISH AND GERMAN LOSSES♦

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We live for two things – and two things only: our scrap on ‘the Day’ and the trip south and our little bit of leave and a sight of some of the gentler sex.

We are supposed to be England’s first line of defence and senior service. Haven’t so much as seen a German or anyone who has been in action.

The diary entry of 22-year-old Lt Philip Bowyer-Smith, serving aboard the battleship HMS Superb, encapsulated the frustrations of sailors on both sides of the North Sea in the spring of 1916.

Before the war, propagandists in Germany and Britain had promised the mother of all naval battles – the climax of two decades of antagonism which would determine which of the two largest navies in the world commanded the oceans.

Under the White Ensign 28 mighty battleships – dreadnoughts, after the revolutionary warship which rendered every other capital ship obsolete at one stroke – nine fast battle-cruisers, possessing the punch of a battleship and the speed of a cruiser, more than 30 cruisers, and six dozen destroyers.

In bases and roadsteads of the Heligoland Bight across the North Sea lay a force nearly as potent, the Kaiser’s Hochseeflotte – High Seas Fleet: 22 battleships, five battle-cruisers, nine cruisers and almost 60 torpedo boat destroyers.

The ordinary German sailor, the Matrose, yearned for Der Tag – the Day, the day when the High Seas Fleet annihilated the British and erased the aura of invicibility which had surrounded the Royal Navy ever since Trafalgar.

Berliner Carl Melms, serving in the battle-cruiser

THE LONG WAIT FOR ‘THE DAY’

SMS Von der Tann, was desperate for the German Navy to prove itself – and raise morale.

During the first two years of the war only the Army received praise. It was as if it had done everything.

We were on watch all the time. When we went to sea, we only sailed 30 or 40 miles, past Heligoland, and back again. We were furious. We would have liked to have shown the German people that we could achieve something.

Apart from unsatisfactory skirmishes at the Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank, the shock German victory at Coronel swiftly avenged by British triumph off the Falklands, the Great War on the high seas had settled down into unbridled monotony, interspersed with sporadic dramatic episodes.

Instead, the Royal Navy sought to strangle Germany from afar – a distant blockade which cut the Kaiser’s Reich off from the rest of the world.

It was slow, but it worked. And the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, Admiral Sir John Rushworth Jellicoe, had no intention of changing tactics.

Jellicoe was bookish, cautious, quiet but friendly. He was, in the words of Winston Churchill, “the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.” But nor could he win it in an afternoon – sinking the High Seas Fleet wouldn’t have any effect on the German Army’s ability to fight.

While Jellicoe urged caution, his impetuous deputy David Beatty, commanding the battle-cruisers, wished only to “get at ’em. If only they’d come out.”

Charismatic, youthful, his cap always at a rakish angle, Beatty was personally brave – he’d fought in the Sudan and China – wealthy (he married an American heiress), popular with the men and media, but also arrogant, vain, impulsive and a womaniser.

His character could not have been more different from Jellicoe’s, yet he understood his master’s caution: “If the German Fleet gets wiped out it really loses little,” he told journalists in early May 1916. “If we get wiped out, we lose everything.”

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Sailors on both sides yearn for action at last♦

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On the other side of the North Sea, David Beatty had a kindred spirit in the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Reinhard Scheer (pictured inset).

The Saxon had taken charge of the High Sea Fleet in January 1916 determined to wage war more aggressively. “England’s aim of strangling Germany without seriously risking her Fleet in the face of German guns had to be defeated,” he wrote.

Scheer could never challenge the Grand Fleet in a straight fight, but he could perhaps bleed it white through gradual attrition, luring some of it to its destruction.

He had tried – and failed – to entice the British with a ‘tip and run’ raid against the East Coast in April. As May drew to a close, Scheer schemed again. His battle-cruisers would head out towards the Skagerrak – the waters between the northern tip of Jutland and Norway. British cruisers and battle-cruisers would give chase and run into the guns of the entire High Seas Fleet.

Such was the plan. And the British already knew it, for they were reading German Navy radio traffic courtesy of the codebreakers of the Admiralty’s Room 40 – forerunners of Bletchley Park and, later, GCHQ.

At 5.40pm on Tuesday May 30, the Admiralty ordered its ships to sea. In Rosyth signals were raised on ships urgently recalling men off duty. By 9.30pm, the ships were weighing anchor. Paymaster Lewis Ricci:

One by one the long black shapes slid through the outer defences, ebon shadows in a world of shades. The escorting destroyers came pelting up astern, heralded by the rush and rattle of spray-thrashed steel, funnels flowing and the roar of their fans from the engine-room exhausts. Night and the mystery of darkness enfolded them. The battle-cruisers were unleashed.

In the Grand Fleet’s remote wartime anchorage at Scapa Flow, 17-year-old torpedoman AlanWatson was enjoying himself aboard the flagship HMS Iron Duke:

We were dancing on the upper deck when all eyes simultaneously gazed aloft. The cause of this was the signal which: Prepare to leave harbour at the greatest possible speed.

Some men sailed expecting action, but many, like Philip Waterer, serving in cruiser HMS Yarmouth, predicted another dreary sweep of the North Sea. “We started out from harbour in our usual manner and apparently going to do the same old thing.”

Albion Percy Smith, captain’s steward on the cruiser HMS Caroline, was rather more optimistic. “After months of dreary watching and waiting, we were to ‘have a go’ at the Germ-huns.”

Midshipman John Croome of HMS Indomitable was impressed by the morale of his shipmates.

In my turret the men spontaneously forgot discipline and let forth a hearty cheer which also came echoing up the shafts from the shell room and magazine down below and reverberated in the confined space.

A more powerful exhibition of majestic strength and efficiency devised solely for the

utter destruction of the enemy it would be hard to imagine. I was proudly conscious

that I was a part of this huge machine and firmly convinced that the machine was invincible, if not even invulnerable.

The German Fleet didn’t weigh anchor until around 2.30am on May 31. When dawn broke around two hours later, Georg von Hase, gunnery officer on the German battle-cruiser SMS Derfflinger, was presented with a magnificent sight:

The sun rose magnificently, covered the sea with its golden rays and soon

showed us the picture of the whole High Seas Fleet proceeding to meet the enemy

– always a wonderful sight and one never to be forgotten.

Far ahead of us steamed the small cruisers in line ahead, surrounded by a cordon of destroyers steaming ceaselessly round the cruisers, on the look-out for enemy submarines, like dogs round a flock of sheep. Then came the battle-cruisers. Five powerful ships with imposing names, the pride of the fleet.

THE OPPOSING FLEETS SET SAILAdmiralty intelligence unmasks German plan

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Through the long morning of May 31, the North Sea remained devoid of the enemy and men, like one sailor in cruiser HMS Birkenhead, performed their regular duties.

Many times we have been out on one expedition or another, sometimes perhaps to meet something, and sometimes perhaps more frequently expecting nothing but a dull patrolling job. Of course, we exercised ‘action’ and generally cleared away in case of emergencies. But once so prepared, we all settled down for an uneventful sweep.

The mood on battle-cruiser HMS Tiger was almost relaxed. “It was nice and warm,” wrote Midshipman John Ouvry. “I had a little sleep on the quarterdeck. We didn’t know anything was around. No excitement at all.”

AN UNEVENTFUL SWEEP♦

‘No excitement at all’♦

24 MAY 2016: www.navynews.co.uk

Shortly after 2pm, cruiser HMS Galatea spied a Danish steamer, the N J Fjord, and closed to investigate.

German scouts had also sighted the merchantman – and did likewise. They were soon spotted by the Galatea, which, at 2.18pm, raised the signal: Enemy in sight.

Ten minutes later, she opened fire with her 6in guns.It was 2.32pm before the guns of the German cruiser

Elbing responded at a range of around 14,000 yards – eight miles – scoring a hit. The shell failed to explode. A reservist tried to pick it up, only to drop it immediately. “Crikey, the blighter’s hot!”

At 2.35pm, this distant scrap between cruisers suddenly took on greater significance as Galatea signalled the rest of the Grand Fleet:

URGENT. HAVE SIGHTED LARGE AMOUNT OF SMOKE AS THOUGH FROM A FLEET, BEARING EAST-NORTH-EAST.

Nearly half an hour passed as the two fleets began to converge. As they did, HMS Engadine readied her Short Seaplane for launch to investigate. Pilot Flt Lt Frederick Rutland – soon to be known as Rutland of Jutland – and his observer Assistant Paymaster George Trewin were over the German lines of battle within ten minutes. Rutland reported:

It was very hard to tell what they were and so I had to close to within a mile and a half at a height of 1,000ft. They then opened fire on me. I flew through several columns of smoke caused through bursting shrapnel. The shock of exploding shrapnel could be felt.

As Rutland tried to evade the flak, the vanguards of the two opponents – Beatty’s 1st Battle-cruiser Squadron and 1st Scouting Group of his German counterpart, Franz Hipper – sighted each other. In the foretop of the battle-cruiser SMS Derfflinger, gunnery officer Korvettenkapitän Georg von Hase watched the two opposing formations ready for battle:

The horizon ahead of us grew clear of smoke, and we could now make out some English light cruisers which had also turned about. Suddenly my periscope revealed some big ships. Black monsters; six tall, broad-beamed giants steaming in two columns. They were still a long way off, but they showed up clearly on the horizon, and even at this great distance they looked powerful, massive.

Six battle cruisers were opposed to our five: we went into the battle with nearly equal forces. It was a stimulating, majestic spectacle as the dark-grey giants approached like fate itself.

The six ships, which had at first been proceeding in two columns, formed line ahead. Like a herd of prehistoric monsters, they closed on one another with slow movements, spectre-like, irresistible.

But now there were other things to be done than gaze at the enemy. The measured ranges were continually decreasing. When we got to 16,500 metres I had given the order: “Armour-piercing shell!” That was the projectile for close-range fighting Now every man in the ship knew that it was to be a short-range struggle, for I had often explained how the two types of projectile were to be used.

The first five English ships were to be engaged by our five German battle-cruisers, and to the Derfflinger fell the second ship in the line, which I identified as of the Queen Mary class. It was the Princess Royal, a sister-ship of the Queen Mary. All was ready to open fire, the tension increased every second, but I could not yet give the first order to fire. I had to wait for the signal from the flagship: “Open fire.” Our enemy, too, were still holding their fire and coming continually closer.

“15,000!” As my last order rang out there was a dull roar. I looked ahead. The Lützow is firing her first salvo and immediately the signal “Open fire” is hoisted. In the same second I shout: “Salvoes – fire!” and like thunder our first salvo crashes out. The ships astern follow suit at once and we see all round the enemy jets of fire and rolling clouds of smoke – the battle has begun!

CATACLYSM: BRITISH BATTLE-CRUISERS EXPLODE IN DUEL♦

Beatty enjoys numerical superiority♦

‘A STIMULATING, MAJESTIC SPECTACLE AS THE DARK-GREY GIANTS APPROACHED LIKE FATE ITSELF.’

BATTLE IS JOINED♦

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Battle-cruisers clash

In the engine room of battle-cruiser SMS Seydlitz, stokers responded to the order ‘Ran an den Feind’ (Attack the enemy) – embellished by a postscript from the commanding officer Kapitän zur See Moritz von Egidy: “Drauf – Seydlitz!” (Up and at them, Seydlitz!). Obermaschinsten [engineering senior rate] Karl Kieffer described the scene:

Our enthusiasm knew no bounds, the stokers yelled like mad, and beat their shovels resoundingly against the bunkers such that the commanding officer up top must surely have heard them!

On board there were 27 boilers with 152 fire doors. When the bell sounded, half the men had to open them, the remainder push the coal in – and as they had to be ‘fed’ ten times every hour, there was rather a lot of work! The coal itself was brought on trolleys and in sacks from 56 bunkers spread around the ship. Beyond the Jade barrier, because of the threat of submarines and mines, the ship was constantly closed up below the armoured deck. When the alarm sounded, the coal was transferred from the passageways to the bunker on the armoured deck.

The mood in the engine rooms and bunker spaces was unique. There could be no question of a shortage of steam: we maintained 24 knots and more for hours on end and, with the exception of the forward electrical station, all the machinery remained in full working order, despite taking hits from the heaviest shells. We took many hard hits – as did the bunkers – and there were some losses.

With yells which even drowned out the thunder of the guns temporarily, messages passed down from above were acknowledged.

At 3.48pm Beatty’s flagship HMS Lion and Princess Royal opened fire on Hipper’s flagship Lützow, HMS Queen Mary locked horns with the Derfflinger, the Tiger traded shells with the Seydlitz, New Zealand fought the Moltke and the Von der Tann grappled with the Indefatigable.

Despite being more than nine miles apart, the Lützow soon had Lion’s range and, after barely ten minutes of battle, Q Turret – two 13.5in guns manned by Royal Marines around 100 feet astern of Lion’s bridge – suffered a direct hit from a 305mm shell. Lt William Chalmers, one of Beatty’s staff officers, immediately looked over the bridge:

The armoured roof of Q turret had been folded back like an open sardine tin, thick yellow smoke was rolling up in clouds from the gaping

hole, and the guns were cocked up in the air awkwardly. It was evident that Q turret

would take no further part in the battle. Strange that all this should have happened within a few yards of where Beatty was standing, and that none of us on the bridge should have heard the detonation.

The shell detonated inside the turret, killed the entire gun’s crew, and caused a fire in the gun-house. This fire set alight some cordite charges which were in the cages for reloading the guns; the resultant flash passed down the trunk into the magazine handing room and thence escaped through the ‘escape trunk’ on to the mess deck, where it finally

dissipated itself.By the time the flash reached

the handing room, the crew of the magazines had just closed the doors;

some of them were found dead afterwards with their hands on the door clips. Their work

was done, and the ship was saved.Everyone in the path of the flash was killed,

including a Surgeon-Lieutenant and his stretcher party who were stationed just above the ‘escape hatch’. The clothes and bodies of the dead men were not burned, and in cases where the hands had been raised involuntarily to protect the eyes, the parts of the face actually screened by the hands were not even discoloured.

With his dying breath, Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey (pictured inset) had ordered the turret’s magazine flooded. His actions saved HMS Lion. They earned him a posthumous VC.

LION IS MAULED♦

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VC for hero marine

HMS Indefatigable possessed no Francis Harvey. At 4.02pm a shell from the Von der Tann plunged through the roof of X Turret and the 22,000-tonne leviathan was torn apart as her magazine detonated. LS Charles Falmer was one of only three survivors of a crew of 1,020 souls.

I saw the guns go up in the air just like matchsticks – 12in guns they were. Bodies and everything. Within half a minute the ship turned right over and she was gone.

George Kinsford was standing in the waist on cruiser HMS Southampton when a shipmate nudged him: “My God, look…”

I looked and I shall never forget the sight – A great cloud of white smoke and steam was rising from a great fire of light red flame, till it attained a height of between seven and eight hundred feet and then it seemed to remain fixed, two dark shapes could be seen and these we took to be the bow and stern of the Indefatigable, the last ship of the line.

Johannes Karl Groth, a 33-year-old officer directing the fall of shot from the 30.5cm guns of Bautzen, or B, Turret on SMS Lützow, was informed of the Indefatigable’s destruction:

The turret crew gave a joyful “Hurrah” and once again one charge after another was pushed into the barrel. During the rapid salvoes which followed, thick smoke developed in the turret as the wind was blowing into the muzzles to some degree. The ventilation plants...could not cope with thick smoke. On top of that the main gun loaders suffered from terrible heat. Sweat flowed in rivers down these men, their breathing became heavier and heavier despite gasmasks. But with admirable calm quiet and speed the crew did the hard work...

Our salvoes continued to hurtle towards the lead English ship, which was also the flagship [HMS Lion]. Salvo after salvo roared from every barrel again but the English also replied with intensive fire and soon the Lützow could feel the superior weight of fire. In any event, several ships were concentrating their fire on us as the lead ship. The salvos were getting closer and closer and it was no longer possible to avoid them as had been the case at the beginning of the battle. So we soon took our first hits, even though the English were not shooting brilliantly.

The opposing battle-cruiser forces were now equal and the battle continued with undiminished fury. From the conning tower of HMS Tiger, one sailor followed the course of German shells coming towards the British battle line “like big bluebottles”.

The next salvo that I saw straddled her, and two more shells hit her. As they hit I saw a dull red glow amidships and then the ship seemed to open out like a puff ball, or one of those toadstool things when one squeezes it. Then there was another dull red glow some-where forward, and the whole ship seemed to collapse inwards. The funnels and masts fell into the middle, and the hull was blown outwards. The roofs of the turrets were blown 100 feet high, then everything was smoke, and a bit of the stern was the only part of the ship left above water.

“I saw a salvo hit Queen Mary,” Cdr Kenelm Creighton, navigator of HMS New Zealand, remembered:

A terrific yellow flame with a heavy and very

‘THERE SEEMS TO BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH OUR BLOODY SHIPS TODAY’

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Indefatigable and Queen Mary blow updense mass of black smoke showed ahead, and the Queen Mary herself was no longer visible. The Tiger was steaming at 24 knots only 500 yards astern of Queen Mary, and hauled sharply out of the line to port and disappeared in this dense mass of smoke. We hauled out to starboard, and Tiger and ourselves passed one on each side of the Queen Mary. We passed her about 50 yards on our port beam, by which time the smoke had blown fairly clear, revealing the stern from the after funnel aft afloat, and the propellers still revolving, but the for’ard part had already gone under.

There was no sign of fire or of cordite flame, and men were crawling out of the top of the after turret and up the after hatchway. When we were abreast and only about 150 yards away from her, this after portion rolled over and, as it did so, blew up.

The most noticeable thing was the masses and masses of paper which were blown into the air as this after portion exploded. Great masses of iron were thrown into the air, and things were falling into the sea round us. There was still up in the air, I suppose at least 100 or 200 feet high, a boat which may have been a dinghy or a pinnace, still intact but upside down as I could see the thwarts. Before we had quite passed, Queen Mary completely disappeared.

Lt Cdr Peregrine Dearden was one of just 20 survivors of a crew of nearly 1,300 – and one of only two men rescued by the Germans. From a prison camp in Mainz, he described the cataclysm in a letter to his mother:

There was a terrific explosion forward and I was sent out on top of our turret (after turret) to see what was happening and had to put on lung respirators owing to clouds of smoke and fire. I could see nothing for about a minute and then all cleared away as the foremost part of the ship went under water. I then told the officer of the turret that the ship was sinking rapidly and so many as possible were got up out of the turret. The whole foc’sle was almost blown off.

I immediately took off all my gear except my shirt and vest. As soon as I was in the water I swam clear astern of the ship about 30 yards when she suddenly blew up completely. I was luckily sucked under water and so all the wreckage chucked about did not come its full weight on my head. I held my breath for a long time and at last came up to the surface and started looking round for something to support me as much as possible.

The surface of the water was simply covered with oil fuel which tasted and smelled horribly. I smothered myself all over with it, which I think really saved my life as the water was really frightfully cold. I should say that about 50 hands went over the side, but about half of them were killed during the second explosion.

The terrible sight of Queen Mary’s demise was observed on the bridge of HMS Lion by Capt Ernle Chatfield, the flagship’s 42-year-old commanding officer:

Beatty turned to me and said: “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today,” a remark which needed neither comment nor answer. There was something wrong. Still, we had four good ships left, the enemy must be damaged, and the Fifth Battle Squadron was coming into action. We continued the pursuit. Beatty was ostensibly unaffected by these two serious losses. No one thought again of them. Events in action rapidly pass out of the mind as new excitements occupy it.

A contemporary German postcard celebrates the destruction of HMS Queen Mary

25MAY 2016 :www.navynews.co.uk

In the space of 30 minutes, Hipper had gone from being outnumbered by his foe to enjoying numerical supremacy. His gunners maintained the pressure, but the physical cost was high. Lützow’s Johannes Groth:

Gradually the heat from the discarded shell cases and glowing barrel became unbearable for the loaders, breathing became almost impossible thanks to the thick smoke. Every man, dressed only in his trousers, did his duty. Then came the almost simultaneous report from both guns: “Left and right numbers four, eight, nine and ten have dropped out.” Men collapsed unconscious in the middle of loading... “The following numbers from the reserve crew report to the gun.” Those who’d passed out were laid to one side, cooled with plenty of water and provided with plenty of fresh air by the auxiliary ventilators. It did not take long before the men had recovered. After just 20 minutes the reserves also collapsed. Both crews took it in turns until the turrets were knocked out.

In spite of his grievous losses, David Beatty (pictured right) was still in the fight – and still carrying out his mission of locating the bulk of the High Seas Fleet. At 4.40pm, the main German battle fleet was sighted. Beatty immediately turned to the northwest to lure them into the jaws of Jellicoe’s battleships. Royal Marine Capt Raymond Poland, commanding Y Turret on battleship HMS Warspite – part of a squadron of dreadnoughts following Beatty’s battle-cruisers – watched as the admiral’s van turned about as his ship continued to engage the enemy.

I ticked off the battle-cruisers as they passed – saw the Lion all right but only one of her class following her so I knew Princess Royal or Queen Mary had gone. Tiger was all right and so was New Zealand, but no Indefatigable. It made me feel pretty sick as it was the first idea I had that anything had gone wrong.

In the first hour or so of the battle, the five German capital ships scored 32 hits on British battle-cruisers and battleships, sinking two of Beatty’s battle-cruisers. Ten British ships scored just 14 hits in return.

German shells straddle Beatty’s flagship HMS Lion leading the line of four battle-cruisers on the afternoon of Wednesday May 31 1916.

Artist Ken Fisher and Artorium Military Art have produced this limited edition 28in x 22in signed print (350 copies) to mark the centenary of the battle, with a percentage of each sale going to SSAFA and Help for Heroes.

The print of HMS Lion is blind embossed on acid-free fine-art paper using lightfast inks and costs £225 plus postage.

Also available is a commemorative piece depicting Lion and the battle-cruisers, plus the leading admirals on both sides.

The Jutland prints – and other seafaring paintings – are available at www.artoriummilitaryart.co.uk/product-category/sea/

THE BIG CAT♦

While the capital ships duelled, the small ships bravely raced among the capital ships in the hope of crippling the enemy with torpedoes. Around 4.15pm, Cdr Edward Bingham in HMS Nestor led three ships of the 13th Destroyer Flotilla against the German lines. By the time he unleashed his torpedoes, he was just 3,000 yards from the enemy ships. Nestor and her sisters paid terribly for their gallant dash. Nicator managed to escape, Nomad and Nestor were knocked out – but not sunk, for the German battle-cruisers were preoccupied with British capital ships. The reprieve lasted no more than half an hour when Scheer’s battleships appeared on the scene. Nomad was “literally smothered with salvoes”, Bingham observed:

Great columns of spray and smoke alone gave an indication of her whereabouts. I shall never forget the sight, and mercifully it was a matter of a few minutes before the ship sank; at the time it seemed impossible that any one on board could have survived.

It was a matter of two or three minutes only before the Nestor, enwrapped in a cloud of smoke and spray, the centre of a whirlwind of shrieking shells, received not a few heavy and vital hits, and the ship began slowly to settle by the stern and then to take up a heavy list to starboard. Her decks now showed the first signs of havoc amongst life and limb.

It was clear that the doomed Nestor was sinking rapidly, and at that moment I gave my last order as her commander, ‘Abandon ship’.

The motor boat and Carley floats were quickly filled, and as the dinghy was badly broken up by shellfire, there seemed to remain for me only the possibility of a place in the whaler.

[Maurice] Bethell [Nestor’s second-in-command] was standing beside me, and I turned to him with the question, ‘Now where shall we go?’ His answer was only characteristic of that gallant spirit, ‘To Heaven, I trust, sir!’

At that moment he turned aside to attend to a mortally wounded signalman and was seen no more amidst a cloud of fumes from a bursting shell.

Edward Bingham and several shipmates were rescued from their whaler by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as prisoners. Bingham was awarded the VC for the “dauntless courage” he displayed leading the attack.

GERMAN BATTLE FLEET SIGHTED; BEATTY LURES FOE TOWARDS JELLICOE’S BIG GUNS

Warspite and her sisters found themselves outnumbered three to one. Their clash with Scheer’s vanguard was, HMS Southampton’s Stephen King-Hall recalled, “a brave sight”:

They were receiving the concentrated fire of some 12 German heavy ships but it did not seem to be worrying them, and though I saw several shells hit the Warspite just ahead of us, the German shooting did not impress me very favourably. But our own position was not pleasant. The half-dozen older battleships at the tail of the German line were too far away to fire at the 5th Battle Squadron, and though we had gradually drawn out to 15,000 or 16,000 yards we were inside their range, and they began to

do a sort of target practice in slow-time on our squadron.

I was in the after control with half a dozen men, the sub [lieutenant] and the clerk. We crouched down behind the tenth-of-an-inch plating and ate bully beef, but it didn’t seem to go down very easily. It seemed rather a waste of time to eat beef, for surely in the next ten minutes one of those 11in shells would get us; they couldn’t go on falling just short and just over indefinitely and, well, if one did hit us, light cruisers were not designed to digest 11in high explosives in their stomachs.

Elsewhere on Southampton, almost identical thoughts were running through

the head of George Kinsford who’d also decided he and his men should eat:

Issued tea, biscuits and corn beef to the lads. I had tea in the wireless room at the invitation of the chief telegraphist with the coding officers and a very jovial company too, considering what was going on all around us.

After tea I went on deck, and I think about this time, from 5 to 6 p.m. was our worst time. Shells of all calibre were dropping all round us, and standing against the door to the quarter deck I noticed several salvoes from the enemy’s dreadnought squadron fall in a direct line with our stern, and thought I, the next salvo we shall get, for it only needed an alteration in deflection on their side to register direct hits on us, but it was not to be.

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I thought: ‘The next salvo we shall get it’♦ BRAVO BINGHAM!

Not all the destroyer charges were a failure, however. Shortly before 5pm, a torpedo from HMS Petard struck the battle-cruiser Seydlitz, which led to an electrical and steering failure. Her commanding officer Kapitän zur See Moritz von Egidy recalled:

The blow was much softer than gunnery hits or near misses, no loud report, but only a rattling noise in the rigging. It was almost the same spot near the forward flat where we’d struck a mine five weeks before. For the damage control party, it was a repeat performance and, although they grinned, it was otherwise not much of a joke.

And all the while the destroyers buzzed around, the opposing battle-cruisers continued to exchange a hail of steel and high explosive. Johannes Groth on SMS Lützow:

The ferocity of the shooting grew even worse. You could no longer identify the individual salvoes – you were aware only of a continuous muffled rumbling and roaring. From time to time there was the occasional loud crash – direct hits followed by an explosion. During this phase of the battle, the port diesel dynamo compartment was knocked out by the ingress of water. The engineers succeeded in saving the starboard compartment opposite. Another direct hit smashed through the armour on the port side, killing and wounding several members of a gun crew. The shell punched a hole in the battery deck and exploded in the radio room, killing the entire radio crew, as well as seriously wounding the damage control teams and bulkhead guards.

Shortly afterwards, it was the turn of Groth’s own turret to take two hits in quick succession:

All the lights went out and all work in the turret stopped. There was thick smoke immediately in the turret and the danger from fire – tongues of flame which shot through the turret in every direction like lightning in every colour of red, yellow and green. I suffered first and second degree burns to my head and hands. Breathing with the gasmask was impossible. It was only after I threw myself down on to the deck for a long time and shoved a wet tissue over my mouth that breathing improved. I pulled an overcoat over my head to protect me from the tongues of flame.

Groth escaped from his battered turret through a hole created by a shell and reported: Turret Bautzen is out of action.

Nestor leads destroyers’ gallant charge♦

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‘RUN TO THE NORTH’SMS Lützow takes a hammering

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Having lured the entire German Fleet north for the past hour towards the kernel of the Grand Fleet, by 5.30pm Beatty’s battered battle-cruisers were in sight of Jellicoe’s scouting forces, the battle-cruisers of Admiral Horace Hood. Ahead of Hood were his light forces, including the brand-new light cruiser HMS Chester which saw smoke on the horizon – and went to investigate. She ran headlong into four German cruisers. Her crew only partially trained, Chester fired just one broadside before German shells tore into her. In ten minutes Chester ceased to be an effective fighting force. As soon as the cruiser was out of range of the enemy’s guns, Acting Sub Lt Windham Mark Phipps Hornby, a 20-year-old signals officer from Berwick-upon-Tweed, made his way up to the bridge and found it “a sad state of affairs”:

CHESTER’S ORDEALHorrific scenes aboard cruiser

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‘Our boy Jack’ stands firm at his post♦

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h Continued on page 26, column 2

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A shell had burst on the starboard sounding machine and wrecked the starboard side of the bridge. Roy, the chief yeoman of signals, had been killed as he was taking a signal up to the upper bridge for the captain to see. He was lying on his back, the signal pad still clutched in his dead hand.

On getting down from the bridge I applied myself to ascertaining what casualties had been suffered among my division, the boys. There was not room for all of them in the sick bay, so when that was full, the wardroom was pressed into service and, later, some officers’ cabins.

My servant, Private Hamilton RMLI, who had been in an ammunition fire, was put in my cabin. For days after, the smell of scorched flesh lingered about it.

Steward Reginald Gulliver from Wick stepped out on to Chester’s upper deck:

What a sight. An officer was lying dead with both legs severed. I stepped over a body that had been disembowelled and I had to hold a seaman’s foot which the doctor cut off; it was just hanging. There were bits of skull all over the deck. We laid the bodies side-by-side and were told to turn them on their stomachs.

Of 100 men manning the guns, 47 were dead or wounded, among them one John Travers Cornwell, a slight 16-year-old from northeast London. Chester’s Capt Robert Lawson subsequently wrote to the teenager’s mother, Lily:

His devotion to duty was an example for all of us. The wounds which resulted in his death within a short time were received in the first few minutes of the action. He remained steady at his most exposed post at the gun, waiting for orders.

His gun would not bear on the enemy; all but two of the crew were killed or wounded, and he was the only one who was in such an exposed position. But he felt he might be needed, as indeed he might have been; so he stayed there, standing and waiting, under heavy fire, with just his own brave heart and God’s help to support him.

I cannot express to you my admiration of the son you have lost from this world. I hope to place in the boys’ mess a plate with his name on, and the date, and the words ‘Faithful unto death’. I hope some day you may be able to come and see it there.

Jack Cornwell succumbed to his wounds in hospital in Grimsby on June 2. His body was transported to London at his mother’s request and interred in Manor Park Cemetery – not far from the site of what would become the venue for the London 2012 Olympics.

Chester’s ordeal was over. Destroyer HMS Shark’s was just beginning. She and the three other destroyers of the 4th Flotilla charged as light German forces tried to race through the maelstrom to unleash a torpedo attack against Hood’s battle-cruisers which were now entering the fray. They succeeded in drawing the German’s fire – but at terrible cost. In a letter to her brother-in-law, the wife of Cdr Loftus William Jones, skipper of the Shark, described the later stages of the action:

All the guns but one were blown away and this last gun Loftus, the midshipman and Hope, a seaman gunner worked till the end.

The flag was shot down six times, and each time Loftus had it hoisted again. About five minutes before the ship sank Loftus’ leg was blown completely away above the knee, and then he was obliged to rest on the deck, but he was quite conscious all the time and gave his commands till the last. When he was on deck like this, he saw the flag was down, and he said “What is wrong with the flag, hoist another at once.”

The midshipman and Hope did a most gallant thing they had to crawl along in the most hazardous position when the ship was raked with fire from end to end, but they hoisted the flag again and were untouched, and Loftus was happy as the ship went down firing her last gun and with her flag flying.

Loftus Jones (pictured inset) took to a liferaft with some of his crew but died of his injuries. His body washed up in Sweden, where it was buried first in the tiny fishing village of Fiskebäckskil before being reinterred in Kviberg Cemetery, Gothenburg in 1961. By then, there was a ‘VC’ to add to the gravestone; Jones was posthumously recognised for his bravery in March 1917.

Also dead in the water was the German cruiser Wiesbaden, whose helplessness drew the attention of armoured cruisers Defence and Warrior, scouting ahead of the battleships of the Grand Fleet, which closed in for the kill.

Leading Stoker Hugo Zenne joined his shipmates on the upper deck as they prepared to abandon the crippled German vessel.

The hits on the stern, where we were located, were dreadful. All sorts of equipment came flying out of the officers’ cabins on to the upper deck. We’d taken the gas masks which we’d been given for the first time out of their boxes

h Continued from page 25, column 4Londoner John ‘Jack’ Travers Cornwell signed up for the RN in October 1915 and after basic training in Devonport headed to Rosyth to join cruiser HMS Chester at Easter 1916.

Six weeks later, the ship found herself in the middle of the greatest clash of warships the world had ever seen at Jutland.

Jack Cornwell was a sight setter on a 5.5in gun – protected from the enemy and the elements only by a shield.

The cruiser was hit 18 times by German shells. Four landed near Cornwell’s gun, killing all but two of its crew and gravely wounding the 16-year-old.

Cornwell did not seek help. He remained by his gun, awaiting orders, until Chester withdrew from the fight. Finally he was carried below for treatment.

There was little Chester’s surgeons could do for him and doctors at Grimsby Hospital, where Cornwell was taken the following day after the cruiser headed up the Humber.

His mother was sent for, but the boy seaman died on June 2 1916 before she reached his bedside.

The young sailor was laid to rest in a common grave in Manor Park Cemetery, but when news of his bravery was revealed to the world – he was the only rating singled out in Admiral Beatty’s public dispatch on the battle – a clamour grew to honour him.

Cornwell’s body was exhumed then reinterred with full military honours in the same cemetery on July 29 in what was the largest public event of the entire war.

The grave was eventually crowned with an imposing memorial, postcards were produced, September 30 was hailed ‘Jack Cornwell Day’, stained glass windows were commissioned, memorial funds set up, the Victoria Cross was posthumously awarded and Frank Owen Salisbury was commissioned to produce a portrait which today hangs in the church of HMS Raleigh to inspire a fresh generation of young sailors.

BOY HERO VC♦ CHESTER’S ORDEAL

and every time a shell howled towards us, we put them over our heads so that we didn’t choke on the dense smoke produced by the Lyddite. When our fleet approached for a second time, many men jumped into the water in the hope that they’d be fished out. They always swam together in groups of six or eight men.

Now during this moment of the heaviest fire, my shipmates from the boiler room arrived at every possible place on the upper deck. They

ran to the afterdeck dripping with sweat, many only wearing clogs, handkerchiefs

and trousers. They all wanted to jump overboard immediately because they saw our ships approaching us. I told them that they shouldn’t do it, for I had already seen the High Seas Fleet turn away twice.

Many of the stokers were killed just as they got on deck, killed by shell splinters and shrapnel from the funnels and superstructure. The worst thing was the metal splinters from the superstructure flying around. A young stoker ran past me and wanted to go over the side with a great leap. At that very moment,

however, he was fatally struck down on the deck...

We carried the corpses of our dead comrades to the port side and laid

them down in order. Here we saw several dear comrades whom we had been together

with since the beginning of the war, staring at their pale faces for the last time. Then we got hammocks, still attached on the port side, laid them out on the starboard side and put our injured comrades in them.

The terrible beating Wiesbaden took invoked the ire of Derfflinger’s gunnery officer Georg von Hase:

Seized with fury, I abandoned my former target, had the English cruiser’s range measured, gave the range and deflection, and “crash!” – a salvo roared out at the Wiesbaden’s tormentor. One more salvo and I had him. A column of smoke rose high in the air. Apparently a magazine had exploded. The cruiser turned away and hauled out at top speed, while I peppered her with two or three more salvoes.

In attacking Wiesbaden, Defence and Warrior brought themselves within range of the guns of at least five German capital ships. The shells of one – or more – German ships detonated in Defence’s magazine, as observed by the bridge team aboard the battleship HMS Colossus:

DEATH RIDE OF THE ARMOURED CRUISERSDefence and Wiesbaden crippled, Defence blown apart – ‘God it was an awful sight’

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We thought she had gone about a minute before she finally blew up, as she completely disappeared in a mass of spray, smoke, and flame. But she came through it apparently still intact, only to disappear a few seconds later in a tremendous belch of vivid flame and dense black smoke, from which some dark object, possibly a boat or a funnel, was hurled through space, twirling like a gigantic Catherine-wheel.

Royal Marine turret commander Capt Raymond Poland watched from HMS Warspite:

I saw Defence coming down our starboard bow heading straight at the enemy. She was banging away, and going full speed, masthead colours and all the rest of it and made a very gallant show. I saw three salvoes fall across her in quick succession, beauties.

A flicker of flame ran aft along her forecastle head and up her fore turret, which seemed to melt. Then – whoof, up she went, a single huge sheet of flame, 500 feet high, mixed up with smoke and fragments. As it died I saw her crumpled bow, red hot, sticking up, about 30 or 40 feet of it, at an angle of sixty degrees and then that sank. I nearly vomited. God it was an awful sight. I couldn’t get to sleep that night for thinking of it. The whole thing, from the moment I saw her, couldn’t have taken 20 seconds.

Every man aboard the Defence – between 893 and 903 souls – was killed in an instant.

HMS Warrior barely fared any better, but was saved, in part, by the super-dreadnoughts of the Fifth Battle Squadron and HMS Warspite in particular. She veered out of line and made a seemingly suicidal charge towards the German lines; her steering failed and, for about ten minutes, she drew the fire of eight enemy capital ships before control was regained. She hauled out of the action trailing thick black smoke, limping along at 16, not 24kts. Cdr Humphrey Walwyn, Warspite’s executive officer, surveyed the damage.

The upper deck and superstructure looked perfectly awful – holed everywhere. Everything wrecked and it looked like a burned-out factory – all blackened and beams twisted everywhere.

His captain, Edward Philpotts, was determined to remain in the line of battle. His superiors thought otherwise and ordered Warspite to return to Rosyth where she became the first warship to make use of the new docking facilities. She had been hit 150 times – yet suffered only 14 dead.

Would that the Grand Fleet’s battle-cruisers could take such punishment.

The sight of Horace Hood’s three battle-cruisers – Indomitable, Inflexible and flagship Invincible – engaging the enemy “with every gun in action” was one of the most stirring sights of the entire battle.

Hood’s trio were the oldest dreadnoughts at Jutland – and they were also outnumbered. At a range of around 8,000 yards – four and a half miles – Invincible exchanged shells with the Derfflinger. Orange flashes could be seen on the German ship as 12in projectiles sliced through the armour and exploded.

“Your firing is very good,” Hood told Commander Hubert Dannreuther, directing Invincible’s gunnery from her foretop. “Every shot is telling.” It was the last word Dannreuther heard from the admiral.

Dannreuther’s counterpart in Derfflinger, gunnery officer Georg von Hase, watched the battle-cruiser suffer the same terrible fate as HMS Queen Mary and Defence:

There occurred a rapid succession of heavy explosions, masts collapsed, debris was hurled into the air, a gigantic column of black smoke rose towards the sky, and from the parting sections of the ship, coal dust spurted in all directions. Flames enveloped the ship, fresh explosions followed, and behind this murky shroud our enemy vanished from our sight. I shouted into the telephone: “Our enemy has blown up!” and above the din of the battle a great cheer thundered through the ship and was transmitted to the fore-control by all the gunnery telephones and flashed from one gun-position to another.

Passing the wreck, the crew of the new battleship Royal Oak were convinced the wreckage on the surface belonged to a downed Zeppelin. Midshipman Hugh Tate noted:

As we passed it turned out to be the wreckage of a ship. We thought it to be a German cruiser and cheered as we passed.

Later, it appeared that it was HMS Invincible who had blown up. A destroyer was standing by and picking up the few survivors from amongst the many corpses with which the water was thickly covered.

The crew of the destroyer HMS Badger were also convinced the wreck of Invincible was a German ship and had an armed guard at the ready to keep any survivors in check, as one junior officer remembered:

As we neared the wreck, we could see the water all round thick with flotsam and jetsam, mainly

composed of floating seamen’s kit-bags, with a few hammocks scattered amongst them. We also spotted a raft on which were four men, and on the bridge they spotted two other survivors in the water.

Judge of my surprise, when the raft was almost alongside, to see a commander, a lieutenant, and two seamen ratings on it.

The commander [gunnery officer Hubert Dannreuther] was really marvellously self-possessed. I can hardly understand to this day how a man, after going through what he had, could come on board us from the raft as cheerily as if he was simply joining a new ship in the ordinary course of events. He laughed at the armed guard, and assured us that he hadn’t a scratch on his whole body, and that he had merely – as he put it – stepped into the water when the foretop came down.

The lieutenant was rather more shaken, and

small wonder, for he had been in the conning tower when the ship blew up, and had had to climb out of it and scramble up the sloping deck to the bridge screens, where he was almost immediately engulfed in the water. He told us that he was sucked down once or twice by eddies and had almost given up hope, when he at last broke surface, and with the aid of a floating kitbag propelled himself to the raft on which the commander was already seated. The two seamen from the raft appeared to be quite all right, but I did not get an opportunity of questioning them as to their experiences. Of the two men picked up from the water, one, a private of Marines, was badly burnt, and later suffered great pain, though he eventually recovered. He told us later that he was in some cabinet at the rear of a turret, but remembered nothing about the explosion until he found himself in the water.

DEATH RIDE OF THE ARMOURED CRUISERSDefence and Wiesbaden crippled, Defence blown apart – ‘God it was an awful sight’

HOOD: EVERY SHOT IS TELLINGInvincible ripped apart ♦ Sea littered with flotsam ♦ Handful of survivors

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Death of a titan: HMS Invincible is engulfed by flame and smoke as her magazine detonates and (below) her shattered bow and stern protrude from the North Sea a few minutes later. Just six souls were saved.

burning cases spread to the transfer chamber, where it set fire to four more cases, and from there to the case-chamber, where four more were ignited. The burning cartridge-cases emitted great tongues of flame which shot up out of the turrets as high as a house; but they only blazed, they did not explode as had been the case with the enemy. This saved the ship, but the result of the fire was catastrophic. The huge tapering flames killed everyone within their reach. Of the seventy-eight men inside the turret only five managed to save themselves through the hole provided for throwing out

empty shell-cases, and of these several were severely injured. The other 73 men

died together like heroes in the fierce fever of battle, loyally obeying the orders of their turret officer.

A few moments later this catastrophe was followed by a second. A 38cm shell pierced the roof of Dora turret. The same horrors ensued. With the exception of one single man, who was thrown by the concussion through the turret entrance, the whole turret crew of 80 men, including all the magazine men, were killed

instantly. The crew of Dora turret,

under the leadership of their brave turret

officer, Stückmeister [Petty Officer] Arndt, had

fought heroically up to the last second. Here, too, the flames spread to the cartridge chamber and set fire to all the cases which had been removed from their protective packing. From both after-turrets great flames were now spurting, mingled with clouds of yellow smoke, two ghastly pyres.

After receiving numerous hits, knocking out her two forward turrets, SMS Lützow was no longer a fit flagship for Admiral Franz von Hipper (pictured above). His staff officer Hugo von Waldeyer-Hartz observed Hipper agonise over the fate of the battle-cruiser:

A kind of paralysis seemed to descend upon Hipper and his face expressed bitter disappointment. It was plain that circumstances had made it essential for the group staff to leave the Lützow and another ship must be chosen as flagship. Yet Hipper issued no orders. It was the first time that he had had nothing to say.

His First Staff Officer, Commander [Erich] Raeder, went straight up to him and said:

“We can’t lead the squadron from the Lützow any more, Your Excellency!”

“But I can’t leave my flagship!”“We’re unable to signal by wireless and

anyhow our speed isn’t enough!”“No doubt! But my flagship!”“The squadron needs Your Excellency!”Hipper seemed to have an electric shock. In

a flash he was the Hipper of old – or to speak more accurately – he excelled the Hipper of old. “You’re right!” he said, and then turned, every inch the officer and leader of men, to take his leave of the staff and seamen on the bridge of the Lützow. “We’ll come back! We won’t forget you!” The confidence with which he was able to animate his subordinates even in this darkest hour was little short of amazing. He shook hands hard and long with Captain Harder. His praise for the way in which the ship had been handled was deep and sincere.

Having received cursory treatment for his injuries, Johannes Groth returned to his turret in a bid to rescue wounded shipmates. It was, he remembered, “a sorry sight”. At least seven men were dead, the rest were injured – at least half a dozen of them mortally so.

Everyone had suffered from minor or severe burns. The minds and spirit of every man had suffered a severe blow – in some cases it meant they had to be discharged later on.

As far as I know, only one man was fit for service again. Rescuing these wounded

men posed tremendous difficulties as they were all raging to a greater or lesser degree and the entrance to the compartment was very narrow. In several cases their feet and hands had to be bound to make transporting them possible. Every one of them yelled for water continuously.

Yet the death ride paid off. The German battleships slipped away into the growing gloom of dusk. At 7.45pm, the British capital ships lost contact with their foe.

The relative lull allowed Surg Lt Charles Leake to tend to wounded

shipmates aboard HMS Warrior.

The wounds were very ragged as caused by pieces of metal. Compound

fractures were common and limbs had been torn off. Of the survivors, the

majority had wounds of lower extremities. Several had limbs smashed to pulp and had embedded pieces of clothing and metal which needed removal.We commandeered the bathroom near the sick bay for a theatre and prepared it as quickly and as best we could. We had only candle lamps available, and these give very little illumination for critical operations.

In the half-light of sunset, the German Fleet appeared for the final time before night entirely cloaked the North Sea. A little after 8.20pm, Hipper’s bruised battle-cruisers ran into half a dozen British counterparts – some mauled, others virtually unscathed. For 20 or so minutes, the two sides again traded shells – mostly in the RN’s favour (eight hits to one in return) before Beatty decided his quarry was too indistinct to continue shooting. At 8.40pm, his guns fell silent. Never again in the Great War would capital ships engage in action.

32 MAY 2016: www.navynews.co.uk

This was the climax of the battle – a terrible, yet mesmerising, spectacle men on both sides had yearned for since August 1914.

At the very moment Invincible blew up – 6.33pm – Reinhard Scheer realised he was confronted not just by Beatty’s battered battle-cruisers, but the entire Grand Fleet emerging from the mist and fug of battle before him.

The entire arc stretching from north to east was a sea of fire. The flash from the muzzles of the guns was seen distinctly through the mist and smoke on the horizon, although the ships themselves were not distinguishable.

From battleship Royal Oak, Midshipman A Clarke watched impressed as Jellicoe (pictured inset) deployed his dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts for what would be a decisive action.

The ships seemed to be in a great arc, stretching as far as one could see – a most imposing spectacle. All the guns trained on the beam, smoke poured from the ships’ funnels and numberless ensigns fluttered from every ship.

One wondered what would be the result – who would be sunk and who would live through it.

HMS Caroline’s Albion Percy Smith was similarly transfixed:

It was grand, yet at the same time an awful sight. We were ahead of our fleet. Then the huge guns of our battleships opened fire. Guns were hurling 15in shells into the opposing fleets with roars and flashes, as if scores of thunderstorms had met and got angry. The sea, which before had been calm, became churned into waves and foam. The falling of enemy shells around us caused huge columns of water, rising many feet high. It was indeed hell let loose, and the screams and sobs of shells as they flew over and around defies description. Another thing which was worthy of attention was some German shells. As they burst, they gave one the impression of blood bursting in billowy clouds; and this, mind you, in broad daylight. The effect at night is more awful still.

The sky became thick and overcast by vast clouds of dense black smoke, belched out by scores of funnels. The sun, which was shining at first, got blotted out by the smoke and haze.

Below decks there was the hellish cacophony of battle, reverberations, shudders, bangs. “Those of us on the lower deck had no idea. We didn’t realise the extent of our losses until we got the papers three days later when we arrived back in Scapa Flow,” LS Harry Pursey, torpedo gunner’s mate on HMS Revenge, recalled.

Toiling in the engine room of HMS Colossus Leading Stoker Christopher Browning remembered: “For six hours no-one told us anything. All we heard were the bumps of enemy shells as they hit or splashed around the ship and as our own guns fired.”

Outnumbered and outgunned, Reinhard Scheer ordered his ships to turn 180˚ and flee the battle, while destroyers covered his retreat with bravely-led torpedo attacks which caused jitters in the British ranks – and damaged at least one battleship, the Marlborough.

The German flight was brief. Unable to outrun the Grand Fleet before darkness set in, after about 15 minutes Scheer ordered another 180˚ turn by his ships – supposedly to unnerve the British. It brought the weight of the core of the Royal Navy down on his ships. For a quarter of an hour, the German ships, silhouetted again the slowly-setting sun, presented “a perfect target, each ship standing out black and clear”, recalled Harold Wright, a chief engine room artificer in the bowels of HMS King George V.

“Every time there was a hit a roar would go up from the lads – everyone was very excited. I am sure we served out a lot of punishment.”

The Grand Fleet did. Five German battleships suffered a succession of hits – mauled so badly that after about 20 minutes of a seemingly-one-sided fight, Reinhard Scheer ordered his ships to turn around a second time – for good. To cover the battleships’ withdrawal, he ordered his battle-cruisers to charge the British lines – a move which has become known as the ‘death ride’. Derfflinger found herself deprived of two of her main turrets in quick succession, as Georg von Hase recounts:

A 38cm shell pierced the armour of Caesar turret and exploded inside. The brave turret commander, Lt Cdr von Boltenstern, had both his legs torn off and with him nearly the whole gun crew was killed. The shell set on fire two shell-cases in the turret. The flames from the

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GRAND FLEET ENTERS THE FRAY AT LASTSir John’s moment arrives ♦ Deprived of total victory by onset of darkness

Nightfall found the Grand Fleet to the east of the High Seas Fleet, steaming on roughly parallel courses to the south-south-east. Deprived of victory in daylight and ill-equipped and unprepared for a night battle – unlike the Germans, whose ships were fitted with better searchlights and bristled with torpedo tubes – Jellicoe resolved to cut his foe off from his base and complete the destruction of the German Fleet. He guessed – correctly – that Scheer’s battered ships would head for home by the shortest route, via the Horns Reef, then on to Heligoland and Wilhelmshaven. At first light – six hours hence – the Royal Navy would be waiting to intercept them for a truly Glorious First of June. The Grand Fleet steamed through the darkness at 17 knots.

The night, by and large, belonged to the small ships and a series of confused, fleeting, brutal encounters. Around 10.30pm 24-year-old Bavarian Richard Stumpf resumed lookout duties aboard the battleship SMS Helgoland:

What a sight unfolded before my eyes! Imagine a scene of pitch-dark blackness with flashes of light flaring up continually. There were two patches where the lights flashed with greater frequency – probably cruisers or destroyers. They must have been very far away because the thunder of their guns could not be heard. On the bridge loud talking was prohibited; the men spoke to their neighbours in quiet, secretive tones. Since at any moment [enemy] torpedo boats might attack through the darkness, all our nerves were on edge.

There they are! The beam of the stern searchlight swooped on a grey shape and held fast. Mighty flames shot from all our guns. One! Two! Three! The impact! Much too far away. Another broadside and [we had scored] a hit! I distinctly saw the pieces flying and in a moment flames jumped to the sky. That was a direct hit. Soon more torpedo boats would come. What ship was burning so horribly four stories high off our port? Was it one of ours or the enemy’s? I stared through the glasses but could only make out an occasional fragment falling from the ship. Gradually its dark red glow was transformed into white-hot heat. If she didn’t sink within 15 minutes we would be there.

At the rear of the Grand Fleet’s extended lines, crews of the destroyers of the 4th Flotilla – largely separated from the rest of the British forces – began to notice the blurry outline of vessels. They closed to within a mile of the strange shapes – cruisers scouting ahead of the main High Seas Fleet. The searchlights were switched on and the secondary armament brought to bear on the attackers, as Oberstückmeistersmaat [Petty Officer Artificer] Heinrich Petry on SMS Westfalen recalled:

An order sounds through the blackness of the night: “Searchlights on! Fire salvoes!”

The gun commander presses the electrical firing mechanism and a blood-curdling blow is delivered as six 15cm and eight 8.8cm shells leave their barrels; like bolts of lightning they seek out the steel body of the enemy and turn into huge sheets of flame. Glowing yellow, tragic yet beautiful, like a blazing conflagration, follows his course. On the bow, the number 60 – Tipperary, an English destroyer flotilla leader – is recognisable. Salvo after salvo pours from the German iron mouths into the North Sea night. But those on the blazing enemy ship are no cowards: suddenly, between two and four torpedoes leave their tubes heading for the German lines. It was only thanks to God’s good grace that they missed their target. Amid the bursting and exploding and shells one man stands on the aft gun and carries out his duty, until he’s surrounded by a ring of fire, and he dies for his mother country. Ablaze, the destroyer moves out of the Westfalen’s field of fire and then our sister ship, Nassau, dispatches it to the deep. The waves of the North Sea silently close over the proud British ship with its brave crew.

A few minutes later, HMS Spitfire moved in to see if she could offer Tipperary – “now a mass of burning wreckage” – any assistance, as Lt Athelstan Bush recalled:

As we neared the Tipperary, we saw a German cruiser hovering near. Suddenly the captain

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NIGHT ACTIONS♦

♦Confused clashes

UNEQUAL BATTLES ♦

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Destroyers versus dreadnoughts

h Continued on page 33, column 1

33MAY 2016 :www.navynews.co.uk

realised that she had seen us, and was trying to ram us. She was coming at us full speed across our port bow. The Captain ordered: “Hard-a-starboard: full speed ahead both,” and, leaning over the bridge screen, shouted, “Clear the foc’sle.”

I can recollect a fearful crash, then being hurled across the deck, and feeling the Spitfire rolling over to starboard as no sea ever made her roll. As we bumped, the enemy opened fire with their foc’sle guns, though luckily they could not depress them to hit us, but the blast of the guns literally cleared everything before it. Our foremast came tumbling down, our for’ard searchlight found its way from its platform above the fore-bridge down to the deck, and the foremost funnel was blown back till it rested neatly between the two foremost ventilation cowls, like the hinging funnel of a penny river steamboat. The enemy, probably it was the cruiser Elbing [it was actually the battleship Nassau] surged down our port side, clearing everything before her; the boats came crashing down and even the davits were torn out of their sockets, and all the time she was firing her guns just over our heads. But none of her shells hit us, except two fired from her foc’sle guns just before the ramming, which passed through the canvas screens round the bridge.

The captain was standing on the bridge, but bent down, whether or not with an object I don’t know, and the shell passed across the top of his head taking his cap with it, and left only a skin-deep though nasty wound. With the exception of the captain, the coxswain, and one seaman, who later on were all extricated with much difficulty from the wreckage, everybody on the bridge was killed by these two shells.

Over a period of around 30 minutes, the decimation of the 4th Flotilla continued. HMS Fortune blundered into the battleship Oldenburg at point-blank range and was promptly sunk.

There was no blundering by HMS Ardent. Lt Cdr Arthur Marsden was determined to attack – and attack he did, but he hadn’t expected to take on an entire division of German battleships single-handedly:

The next moments were perhaps the most thrilling that anyone could experience. Our guns were useless against such big adversaries; our torpedoes were fired; we could do no more, but wait in the full glare of the blinding searchlights for the shells that could not fail to hit us soon at such close range. There was perfect silence on the bridge, and not a word was spoken. It must only have been seconds, but it seemed like hours. Shell after shell hit us, and our speed diminished and then stopped; then the dynamo stopped, and all the lights went out.

When the shooting ceased, Marsden toured his battered ship to survey the damage:

A terrible scene of destruction and desolation was revealed to me as I walked aft (with some difficulty). All boats were in pieces. The funnels looked more like nutmeg graters. The rafts were blown to bits, and in the ship’s side and deck were holes innumerable. In the very still atmosphere, the smoke and steam poured out from the holes in the deck perfectly straight up into the air. Several of my best men came up and tried to console me, and all were delighted that we had at length been in action and done our share. But many were already killed and lay around their guns and places of duty. Most of the engine-room and stokehold brigade must have been killed outright.

After a ten-minute break in the fighting, the Ardent suddenly found herself lit up once again by German searchlights before four or five shells were sent into her at point-blank range. Lt Cdr Marsden continues his account:

The ship heeled right over and threw me to the ship’s side. I could feel she was going, so I flopped over into the sea, grabbing a lifebuoy that was providentially at hand. The Ardent’s stern kept up a few moments, then she slowly sank from view. As the smoke and steam cleared off I could see many heads in the water – about forty or fifty I should think. There was no support beyond life-belts, lifebuoys, and floating waistcoats, so I was afraid that few of us could possibly survive, especially as I realized that all the destroyers had gone on, and that no big ship would dare to stop, even if they saw us in the water.

I spoke to many men, and saw most of them die one by one. Not a man of them showed any fear of death, and there was not a murmur, complaint, or cry for help from a single soul. Their joy was, and they talked about it to the end, that they and the Ardent had “done their bit”, as they put it.

No man on the Ardent, Tipperary, Spitfire or Fortune knew it but these devastating encounters were the opening moves of Reinhard Scheer’s ‘great escape’. Moving at least one knot slower than the Grand Fleet, the German ships would reach the safety of the Horns Reef by crossing the ‘tail’ of the strung-out British lines.

UNEQUAL BATTLES

Not every German ship would make it home, however. Around the same time as Ardent was sinking, the bulkheads on the watertight compartments next to the SMS Lützow’s forward boiler room were beginning to buckle. If they gave way, the battle-cruiser would sink. Kapitän zur See Viktor Harder gave the order to abandon ship. Johannes Groth recalled:

Five destroyers were called over to take off the crew. Before they began the transfer, our commanding officer gave a pithy farewell address during which he stressed that he was proud as a commanding officer that every man had done his duty to the last, and that it was unfortunately impossible to save our magnificent ship. Our departure from our fine Lützow concluded with three rousing cheers for our supreme warlord [the Kaiser] and our ship. Now the transfer of the wounded could begin. After that came individual groups.

Around 12.45am the commanding officer was the last man to leave. Unfortunately, we had to leave 17 shipmates in the dynamo room as rescuing them was impossible. With cheers resounding for our proud ship, the individual boats sailed away and headed for the Fatherland. Only one destroyer with our commanding officer aboard stayed behind to give our ship the coup de grâce with a torpedo.

Somehow, the battered SMS Wiesbaden was still afloat six hours after she was turned into a near-lifeless wreck. But, about the same time as the Lützow was abandoned, the cruiser was beginning her death throes. Leading stoker Hugo Zenne:

Wiesbaden now had a heavy list to starboard, she could capsize at any moment... We heard a terrible gurgle from the heart of the ship and we noticed that she was slowly rolling to starboard. We had the feeling that the ship was sinking and at the same time we saw that the two English ships had turned away and abandoned us. We were gripped by powerless anger; we had the icy feeling that now we would have to die a sailor’s death.

Now everything happened in a flash. The ship listed further and further to starboard, began to sink and head for the deep.

I ran aft, grabbed the rope of one of the life rafts which we’d tied there, pulled it forward slightly and stepped off the starboard side on to the raft. I needed just a single step to get to it... We moved between dead comrades, dead fish, hammocks and life jackets. Where this journey would take us, none of us knew.

At the rear of the line of battle, it was now time for the aged pre-dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet – dubbed the ‘five-minute ships’, for that was all they would last in battle – to make their break for freedom. They sparred with the destroyers of the 12th Flotilla, combing the tracks of torpedoes fired into the night by the British. The tin fish missed their targets – all bar one, or perhaps two, which struck the Pommern. Now it was the fate of a German warship to suffer the same terrible end as three British battle-cruisers. From HMS Obedient one sailor saw

a dull red ball of fire amidships, which spread fore and aft and flared up the masts in big red tongues of flame, uniting in a black cloud of smoke and sparks.

In an instant, 844 Germans were incinerated.

h Continued from page 32, column 4♦

HORRORS OF THE NIGHT FIGHT:TRAPPED IN COMPARTMENTS

♦

♦

Lützow abandoned, Pommern blown up, Wiesbaden sunkFor most men, the night was enervating. Midshipman Frank Layard on HMS Indomitable wrote in his diary:

The time crawled and it was beastly cold, and although I was frantically tired, I couldn’t get to sleep. The time absolutely dragged. Beatty did a Nelson and made a signal: ‘The losses on both sides have been heavy but we hope to cut off and annihilate the whole German Fleet today. It is up to every man to do his utmost.’ We were steaming south all night trying to cut them off as we were between them and their coast.

In the small hours, a fire flared up in one of HMS Southampton’s ammunition lobbies. Men carried burning cordite away to prevent the rest going up in flames. Such acts of bravery helped save the cruiser, but not all her crew. George Kinsford:

The havoc that high explosive shells make on the human frame is astounding. Take the case of Able Seaman [George] Hall – this poor fellow had been burnt about the head and face and had lost the sight of both eyes, both arms smashed, right leg broken and the foot of the left crushed, death must certainly have been a relief to him when it came next day.

The first to arrive was Stoker Jones with a large shell wound in the thigh, the next Boy [Thomas] Mellish in a very bad state, we had to amputate his right arm and left leg as they were both crushed, he was given an anaesthetic but he was very low and the poor little chap passed away shortly after leaving the bathroom. Two others slipped through our hands viz: young James Cooks Mate (another very bad case) and Able Seaman Little (Cello-player)

In all, Southampton suffered 34 dead, 58 badly and 23 lightly wounded.

GERMANS FLEE♦

♦

‘Someone had blundered’

Damaged Derfflinger: A sailor stands guard in front of a huge shell hole torn in the superstructure of SMS Derfflinger. The battle-cruiser took 17 hits from heavy calibre British shells and nine more from secondary armament. She suffered 183 casualties, 157 of them killed – more than any other German warship which survived the battle. It was mid-October before she was repaired and rejoined the High Seas Fleet.

HEADING HOME♦

♦Burial of the dead at sea

Aboard HMS Chester, junior signals officer Windham Mark Phipps Hornby grabbed

his first food in 24 hours in the wardroom galley.

As I ate, I was regaled by the cook – a true Cockney – with an account of how the previous day, he had found his mate lying dead in the waist with the top of his head neatly sliced off

“just as you might slice off the top of a boiled egg, sir.” By that time I had

become so inured to death and wounds and blood that I was able to listen unmoved.

Chester’s sailors had spent the night sewing up whatever canvas they could find to create makeshift ‘coffins’ for their fallen shipmates. At mid-day, the 17 dead were committed to the deep. Sub Lt Phipps Hornby again:

As the chaplain was among the dead, the captain read the burial service, standing at the head of the ladder that led up from the starboard waist. He made an impressive figure, as he had been slightly wounded. His head was bandaged and blood stained his greying beard.

The first faint light of the new day – Thursday June 1 – was cast over the North Sea around 3.30am. Cruiser HMS Dublin swept over the waters fought over during the previous day and night. There was no sign of the German Fleet, but plenty of traces of the battle:

The British fleet turned to the north at 2.47am, and swept up and down over their track of the night and over the area of yesterday’s fleet action, until 1.15pm, but no enemy ships were to be found. There were relics of the fight. Patches of oil, with in the centre some wreckage or even the bows of a ship still sticking up, and floating bodies around. It was even possible in a very few cases to rescue a man here or there from the wreckage still alive, but very few were these, for the cold of the North Sea waters is soon numbing in its effect, and humans floating in it mercifully soon lose their senses, become drowsy, and then drown. None of the men appeared to suffer at all; they just seemed to lie back and go to sleep.

Where Tipperary’s flotilla had fought in the night the patches of wreckage were frequent. During the two or three hours succeeding daylight we passed through large quantities of

floating wreckage, hammocks, bodies, etc. An alert signalman reported he saw a hand waving from a spar some distance away, and on closing we were fortunately able to rescue a stoker belonging to the Tipperary, who informed us that his ship had been sunk some four or five hours previously.

For sailors in the British capital ships, dawn brought the hope of a renewed clash with the enemy – leading to his annihilation. A turret commander describes the mood aboard HMS Malaya:

With dawn came the mist; we could see no more than two miles, and not a German was in sight. We cruised about until nearly noon, hoping against hope that the weather would clear and allow us to complete yesterday’s work.

Aboard flagship HMS Iron Duke morale sank as the ship’s company were told the German Fleet was probably now beyond their grasp. Telegraphist PO Arthur Brister recalled:

Tired and puzzled, hardly a word was spoken as we sat in the mess drinking mugs of cocoa. The battle was over and the Germans had got away with it again. We turned in for a couple of hours.

We had been cheated. Someone – or several – had blundered, something or several things had gone wrong. God must have been on the side of the Germans.

Shortly after 6am, the crippled destroyer HMS Sparrowhawk came across a Carley raft full of survivors disappearing in and out of the morning mist.

They saw us and put up a sheet as a sail. We tried to work the engines to steam towards them, but without much success. As they managed to paddle nearer we heard them singing It’s a long, long way to Tipperary, so we knew who they were, and incidentally jolly well agreed with them. It was a long way!

After about an hour and a half they finally managed to get alongside, but 16 out of the 23 collapsed. Poor fellows, they were absolutely done. We managed to get them all on board with the exception of three, who were already dead, but five more died on our quarter-deck. The rest, amongst whom was one officer, the sub-lieutenant of the Tipperary, we dosed with brandy, and they soon recovered. They were all tremendously pleased to have reached something more substantial than their Carley raft at last, but we thought that it was a case of “out of the frying pan into the fire”. I remember the most cheery man of the lot was a fellow who had a hole quite as large as a half-crown right through one of his legs, but it didn’t seem to worry him in the least. They told us that in the early morning a German lifeboat had passed them full of men, and that they had hailed them and asked to be taken on board, but they had been told to go to hell. We presumed these Huns to have been part of the crew of the German cruiser that we had just seen sink, abandoning their ship.

h Continued on page 34, column 1

34 MAY 2016: www.navynews.co.uk

Some of the Jutland wounded – at least half a dozen of them suffering from severe burns – pose for the camera aboard hospital ship HMHS Plassy

Images from the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Imperial War Museum and Navy News archives

Around the same time, battle-cruiser Derfflinger reached Wilhelmshaven. She was in a sorry state, as gunnery officer Georg von Hase wrote:

Our ship was badly knocked about, in some places whole sections were now mere heaps of ruins. The vital parts, however, had not been hit. Thanks to the strong armour, the engines, boilers, the steering gear, the propeller shafts, and nearly all the auxiliary engines were unharmed. The engine rooms had for some time been filled with poisonous gases, but by using gas-masks the engine room personnel – though they had suffered some losses – had been able to carry on. The whole ship was strewn with thousands of shell-splinters of all sizes. Among these we found two 38cm shell caps, almost intact, formidable objects shaped like great bowls, which were used later in the captain’s cabin and the wardroom as champagne coolers.We buried our dead, who now lie there in the cemetery of honour. There were nearly 200 from the Derfflinger.

After a restless night, Midshipman Frank Layard was back on watch in the afternoon aboard battle-cruiser HMS Indomitable:

We passed numerous dead bodies (theirs?) and dead fish and the surface was covered with oil.

The crew of HMS Lion were still recovering their dead. Midshipman A B Coombe watched dead Royal Marines being brought out of the shattered Q Turret.

I saw the dead being taken out of Q Turret. Nasty sight. A shell in the canteen flat killed a number of men down there at the time – it was an awful sight seeing bits of body and arms and legs lying around. Another shell came into the sick bay. Of course Q Turret was a mass of twisted metal and limbs and blood and everything smelled of powder.

Beatty’s battered flagship was still struggling back to Rosyth as she laid her dead to rest in the North Sea on the afternoon of June 2nd. Signals officer Lt Edwin Downing described the ceremony:

The corpses were each sewn up in a hammock with a fire iron at the foot. The captain read the funeral service with the survivors of the ship’s company fallen in on the quarter deck. Two gratings were used, manned by two ratings each, one at the head, the other at the foot. Two corpses are committed to the deep at once, one body is placed on each grating covered with a Union Jack and then borne to the sternmost part of the upper deck, then together the two gratings are tilted and the bodies slide off the grating and into the deep, and so the process is continued until the whole 186 bodies had found a watery grave. The Sailor’s Anthem having been sung with many a sad heart, the ceremony closes.

By the time Lion buried her dead, the world was waking up to news of a German naval victory. Berlin trumpeted the destruction of the battleship Warspite (false), the battle-cruisers Queen Mary (true) and Indefatigable (true), three cruisers, three destroyers, several torpedo boats and even a submarine. The Germans admitted only the loss of the Wiesbaden, Pommern and torpedo boat Frauenlob.

When the Admiralty awoke from its slumber to report the battle, it issued a statement of staggering ineptitude which listed British losses in full – and first – before offering scant information on the toll it had taken of the German Fleet. Having been promised a second Trafalgar, not only had the Royal Navy failed to deliver victory, it had seemingly suffered a defeat. The Battle of Jutland proved to be a serious disappointment.

“The Admiralty communique giving the supposed losses came to increase the gloom,” wrote PO Arthur Brister of the flagship Iron Duke:

Later, newspapers stated that some of our wounded had been jeered by workers at a dockside. It hurt one’s sense of pride in the Service in which many of us had been born and bred and in which our forebears had served. It was impossible to believe that the long unconquerable reign of the British Navy was coming to an end. We consoled ourselves with the thought that another smack at the German Fleet must surely come.

Lt Charles Daniel of HMS Orion was horrified by the reaction of the British people and, above all, the media:

It was a great victory, the enemy being driven back into harbour with considerably heavier losses in both men and material than our own. This did not prevent the press losing its head and starting an unqualified panic. Without waiting for results abuse and idiocy were powered out... A more disgusting exhibition can hardly be imagined....

One paper only (Morning Post) had a headline ‘Admiral Jellicoe’s Victory’. The battle fleet naturally hardly received a mark of recognition from a public which judges results by one’s ability for being rapidly sunk. But then one should know better than to expect thanks from a public so obtuse and dull as the British masses.

“The ships that the Germans claim to have sunk are not only in harbour, but are quite ready again and, in the words of Admiral Beatty: They have a good kick in ’em yet,” a crewman on cruiser HMS Birkenhead assured his family.

A livid Admiral Jellicoe wrote angrily to his wife:

It is ludicrous for the Germans to claim a victory. Victory always rests with the force that occupies the scene of the action, and we did this for the greater part of the next day, until it was quite clear that they had all gone home or as many as were left to go. If they had been so confident of victory they would have tried to go on fighting instead of legging it for home.

HEADING HOME♦

GERMAN TRIUMPH?♦

h Continued from page 33, column 4

Joy in Berlin, gloom in LondonThe facts are, at least, uncontested: 250 warships – 151 British, 99 German – had faced each other. Fourteen Royal Navy and 11 German warships never returned to port, at a cost of 6,094 British and 2,551 German lives.

German heavy guns fired 3,597 shells at British ships. Only one in every 30 rounds hit its target.

British gunnery was even less effective – they scored just 100 hits for the 4,598 12 to 15in shells hurled at the High Seas Fleet.

This tells only part of the story, however. Seventeen German capital ships were either lost or damaged, for only 11 British counterparts. Small wonder then that Jellicoe could report the Grand Fleet ready for action again within hours of returning to base after its epic encounter.

While Britain mourned and brooded, Germany celebrated. Fritz-Otto Busch, a junior officer aboard the battleship Oldenburg, found that he and his shipmates were now fêted:

We’re amazed that everyone looks at us with such enthusiasm, the houses are bedecked with flags, a huge crowd – by Wilhelmshaven’s standards – fills the streets. It’s unusual – normally we’ve only marched through beflagged streets when our Army achieved a victory. Suddenly it’s our turn. It seems quite improbable to us – we truly are embarrassed.

The Kaiser was quick to capitalise on the clash in the Skagerrak – Germans never called the action Jutland – hot-footing to Wilhelmshaven where he first addressed the men of SMS Friedrich der Grosse :

The English Fleet has been beaten! The first mighty hammer blow has been delivered, the halo of English world domination has faded. You have opened a new chapter in the history of the world. The German Fleet has succeeded in beating the superior English Fleet. The Lord of Hosts has steeled your army, kept your eyes focused.

Children! What you have done, you have done for our Fatherland so that it will enjoy free passage on every ocean for its work and energy for all time.

Among the ships Germany’s ruler visited during his stay in Wilhelmshaven was Richard Stumpf’s SMS Helgoland:

He wore a grey raincoat, a naval officer’s hat and had a riding crop in his hand. He approached the table with a vigorous, confident step and called in a loud voice: “Good morning, sailors!” “Good morning, Your Majesty,” responded a thousand voices. From the fantail sounded the sharp and high-pitched voice of the Executive Officer, “Three cheers for His Majesty the Kaiser and our Supreme War Lord!” Since we were all in high spirits that day we all cheered gaily. The Kaiser personally commented on the damage while the entire company looked on at attention. In his hand he held a drawing of the damaged compartments.

For all the rhetoric of kings and kaisers, most men of steel were merely glad to have survived.

“As regards the scrap, I can’t tell you much, only personal impressions,” 29-year-old turret commander Capt Raymond Poland, wrote from HMS Warspite to his brother Allan, commanding submarine HMS C30.

Times, courses steered, enemy’s ships seen and all that sort of thing I know nothing about. It’s all a confused impression, with one or two momentary exceptions, haze, paralysing terror, own gunfire and enemy’s flashes and splashes and a hail of splinters.

It’s all horrible. I was in the most dreadful state of terror the whole time. Big gunfire is a beastly thing if you’re the target. I don’t want to go through anything like our bad quarter of an hour again.

Other Jutland veterans were inspired by the action – and itching for another crack at the enemy. “I firmly believe that if we had had a clearer day and a minute or two more light that the German Fleet would have been annihilated,” Philip Waterer, of cruiser HMS Yarmouth, noted.

Engineering Lt William ‘Billy’ Rosevere, wrote home from HMS Galatea to his family in Plymouth thought the battle “a wonderful experience – but I don’t think any of us wants to go through the same thing every week.” He continued:

It was a wonderful sight to see about 100 ships in about three or four square miles, all blazing away – but there were many sad sights with it. Many fellows have gone whom I knew – one who dined with me only two days before, another a young sub from Belfast whose father is a great friend of mine and whom I persuaded to put his boy into the Navy; young Colquhoon of my entry – in fact, lots of chums.

I don’t think anybody had pictured a naval action like it and, at one time, I saw not less than 30 big projectiles falling into the sea round us – and yet we did not get hit again.

We could easily have annihilated them if it had not been for darkness coming down. As it was, I am certain they suffered very great losses – much worse than ours – and I don’t believe they will want any more for some time.

Or perhaps they did. Despite his ordeal aboard the Lützow, gunnery officer Johannes Karl Groth, was convinced the clash in the Skagerrak had broken “the spell of English supremacy at sea”. Convalescing, he reflected on the German Navy’s ‘day of glory’:

Despite his superiority, even our worst enemy could be beaten, something the world had not believed hitherto. Above all, the Battle of Skagerrak proved to our people what a mighty factor of power our fleet is and that our future lies on the seas. May the lucky star of Skagerrak shine as brightly over our fleet in the future as it did on May 31 1916.

Around the same time as Johannes Groth was putting his thoughts on the battle to paper, Reinhard Scheer was producing his final report for his Kaiser. The Commander-in-Chief of the High Seas Fleet was convinced the battle had been a German victory, but it was one he could ill afford – it would be mid-August before German ships could sortie again (with the exception of the Derfflinger and Seydlitz, still undergoing repairs). German castles of steel could never force Britain to her knees, Scheer reluctantly concluded. Henceforth, the German Navy’s trump card would be its submarine service. It had to be unleashed against the lifelines of the British Empire, Reinhard Scheer urged, “with the utmost ruthlessness”.

The naval struggle against the British Empire would be waged below, not above, the waves.

●♦●

THE AFTERMATH OF THE GREAT BATTLE‘We won,’ Kaiser Bill crows ♦ ‘Ludicrous,’ says Jellicoe. ‘You legged it for home’

♦

Some of HMS Malaya’s 63 dead are committed to the deep

♦

There was no personal visit by the British monarch to his Navy, but George V did send a message of gratitude:

I mourn the loss of brave men, many of them personal friends of my own, who have fallen in their country’s cause. Yet even more do I regret that the German High Seas Fleet, in spite of its heavy losses, was enabled by the misty weather to evade the full consequences of an encounter they have always professed to desire, but for which when the opportunity arrived they showed no inclination.

Though the retirement of the enemy immediately after the opening of the general engagement robbed us of the opportunity of gaining a decisive victory, the events of last Wednesday amply justify my confidence in the valour and efficiency of the fleets under your command.

25 ships gone; over 8,500 dead♦

PRICE OF BATTLE♦

THE KING’S PRAISE♦

♦

JUTLAND’S LEGACY♦

This is a spacer page to allow the following cutaways to appear correctly, just click on to the next page

AGINCOURT

Displacement: 31,360 tonnesLength: 204.7 m Beam: 27.1 m

Speed: 22 knots

NEPTUNEDisplacement: 22,000 tonnesLength: 166 m Beam: 26 m

Speed: 21 knots

Armament: 10 x 12”, 12 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 756

ERIN

Displacement: 30,740 tonnesLength: 170.5 m Beam: 27.7 m

Speed: 21 knots

Armament: 10 x 13.5”, 16 x 6”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,070

HERCULES, COLOSSUS

Displacement: 22,700 tonnesLength: 166 m Beam: 26 m

Speed: 21 knots

COCHRANE, WARRIOR (✚)Displacement: 14,700 tonnesLength: 154 m Beam: 22.4 m

Speed: 23 knots

Armament: 6 x 9.2”, 4 x 7.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 712

43 ‘M CLASS’ (✚ ✚)

Displacement: 1,059 tonnesLength: 82 m Beam: 8.4 m

Speed: 34 knots

Armament: 3 x 4”torpedoes

Complement: 80

4 ‘L CLASS’

Displacement: 1,026 tonnesLength: 82 m Beam: 8.4 m

Speed: 29 knots

Armament: 3 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 74

DUBLIN, SOUTHAMPTON

Displacement: 5,500 tonnesLength: 139.3 m Beam: 14.9 m

Speed: 25.5 knots

Armament: 8 x 6”torpedo tubes

Complement: 475

FALMOUTH, YARMOUTH

Displacement: 5,360 tonnesLength: 138.1 m Beam: 14.5 m

Speed: 25 knots

Armament: 8 x 6”torpedo tubes

Complement: 475

BIRKENHEAD, CHESTER

Displacement: 5,268 tonnesLength: 139.1 m Beam: 15.2 m

Speed: 27 knots

Armament: 10 x 5.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 500

CALLIOPE, CHAMPION

Displacement: 3,810 tonnesLength: 136 m Beam: 12.6 m

Speed: 28.5 knots

Armament: 4 x 6”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 324

CASTOR, CANTERBURY

Displacement: 3,750 tonnesLength: 136 m Beam: 12.6 m

Speed: 28.5 knots

Armament: 4 x 6”, 1 x 4”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 323

GALATEA, INCONSTANT, PHAETON, ROYALIST

Displacement: 3,568 tonnesLength: 132.9 m Beam: 11.9 m

Speed: 28.5 knots

Armament: 2 x 6”, 6 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 270

3 ‘FAULKNOR CLASS’ (✚)

Displacement: 1,850 tonnesLength: 101 m Beam: 9.9 m

Speed: 32 knots

Armament: 6 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 205

CANADA

Displacement: 32,514 tonnesLength: 191 m Beam: 28.2 m

Speed: 22.75 knots

Armament: 10 x 14”, 16 x 6”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 834

REVENGE, ROYAL OAK

Displacement: 31,630 tonnesLength: 189.2 m Beam: 27 m

Speed: 23 knots

Armament: 8 x 15”, 14 x 6”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 940

Displacement: 14,800 tonnesLength: 158.2 m Beam: 22.7 m

Speed: 23 knots

Armament: 4 x 9.2”, 10 x 7.5”, 16 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 825

DEFENCE (✚), MINOTAUR, SHANNON

Displacement: 1,116 tonnesLength: 94 m Beam: 8.7 m

Speed: 32 knots

Armament: 5 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 102

2 ‘TALISMAN CLASS’ (✚)

Displacement: 1,626 tonnesLength: 98.8 m Beam: 9.7 m

Speed: 34 knots

Armament: 4 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 116

2 ‘MARKSMAN CLASS’

Displacement: 31,310 tonnesLength: 213.4 m Beam: 27 m

Speed: 28 knots

LION, PRINCESS ROYAL

Displacement: 32,160 tonnesLength: 214.4 m Beam: 27.1 m

Speed: 28 knots

Armament: 8 x 13.5”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,275

QUEEN MARY (✚)Displacement: 33,790 tonnes

Length: 214.6 m Beam: 27.6 mSpeed: 28 knots

Armament: 8 x 13.5”, 12 x 4”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,459

TIGER

ORION, MONARCH, CONQUEROR, THUNDERER

Displacement: 26,290 tonnesLength: 177 m Beam: 27 m

Speed: 21 knots

Armament: 10 x 13.5”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,100

The British Grand Fleet● ●♦

Destroyers ♦♦

Cruisers♦

Battlecruisers♦

Dreadnoughts♦

Armoured Cruisers♦

Dreadnoughts ................................................... 28Battlecruisers .................................................... 9Armoured Cruisers ........................................... 8Cruisers ............................................................ 25Destroyers ........................................................ 79Minelayers ........................................................ 1Seaplane Carriers ............................................. 1

AGINCOURT

Armament: 14 x 12”, 20 x 6”, 10 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,268

HERCULES, COLOSSUS

Armament: 10 x 12”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 800

COLLINGWOOD, VANGUARD, ST. VINCENTDisplacement: 20,000 tonnes

Length: 163.4 m Beam: 25.7 mSpeed: 20.75 knots

Armament: 10 x 12”, 20 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 758

BELLEROPHON, SUPERB, TEMERAIRE

Displacement: 18,900 tonnesLength: 160 m Beam: 25.1 m

Speed: 20.75 knots

Armament: 10 x 12”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 733

BLACK PRINCE (✚), DUKE OF EDINBURGH

Displacement: 14,189 tonnesLength: 154.1 m Beam: 22.4 m

Speed: 23 knots

Armament: 6 x 9.2”, 10 x 6”torpedo tubes

Complement: 789

4 ‘L CLASS’

Armament: 3 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 74

16 ‘K CLASS’ (✚ ✚ ✚ ✚)

Displacement: 984 tonnesLength: 81.5 m Beam: 8.1 m

Speed: 32 knots

Armament: 3 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 77

9 ‘I CLASS’

Displacement: 790 tonnesLength: 76.8 m Beam: 8.1 m

Speed: 35 knots

Armament: 2 x 4”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 77

ACTIVE, FEARLESSDisplacement: 3,390 tonnes

Length: 123.4 m Beam: 12.5 mSpeed: 25 knots

Armament: 10 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 293

BIRMINGHAM, NOTTINGHAM

Displacement: 5,530 tonnesLength: 139.3 m Beam: 15.2 m

Speed: 25.5 knots

Armament: 9 x 6”, 1 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 433

GLOUCESTER

Displacement: 4,877 tonnesLength: 138.1 m Beam: 14.3 m

Speed: 25 knots

Armament: 2 x 6”, 10 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 410

CAROLINE, COMUS, CORDELIA

Displacement: 4,733 tonnesLength: 128 m Beam: 12.6 m

Speed: 29 knots

Armament: 2 x 6”, 8 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 325

BLANCHE

Displacement: 3,400 tonnesLength: 123.7 m Beam: 12.6 m

Speed: 25 knots

Armament: 10 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 317

WARSPITE, BARHAM, MALAYA, VALIANT

Displacement: 33,790 tonnesLength: 196.2 m Beam: 27.6 m

Speed: 24 knots

Armament: 8 x 15”, 14 x 6”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,025

Displacement: 1,700 tonnesLength: 99 m Beam: 9.7 m

Speed: 34 knots

Armament: 2 x 4”66 mines

Complement: 104

ABDIEL

IRON DUKE, BENBOW, MARLBOROUGH

Displacement: 30,030 tonnesLength: 189.8 m Beam: 28.2 m

Speed: 21.5 knots

Armament: 10 x 13.5”, 12 x 6”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,022

Displacement: 3,400 tonnesLength: 123.4 m Beam: 12.6 m

Speed: 25 knots

Armament: 6 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 317

BELLONA, BOADICEA

Displacement: 11,020 tonnesLength: 144.3 m Beam: 20.9 m

Speed: 22 knots

Armament: 4 x 7.5”, 6 x 6”, 2 x 3”torpedo tubes

Complement: 610

HAMPSHIRE

INVINCIBLE (✚), INFLEXIBLE, INDOMITABLE

Displacement: 20,750 tonnesLength: 173 m Beam: 23.9 m

Speed: 25.5 knots

Armament: 8 x 12”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,000

Displacement: 22,485 tonnesLength: 179.8 m Beam: 24.4 m

Speed: 25 knots

Armament: 8 x 12”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 800

INDEFATIGABLE (✚), NEW ZEALAND

Displacement: 31,310 tonnesLength: 213.4 m Beam: 27 m

Speed: 28 knots

Armament: 8 x 13.5”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,092

LION, PRINCESS ROYAL

Displacement: 26,100 tonnesLength: 182.1 m Beam: 27.1 m

Speed: 21 knots

Armament: 10 x 13.5”, 16 x 4”torpedo tubes

Complement: 782

KING GEORGE V, AJAX, CENTURION

Displacement: 2,590 tonnesLength: 98.5 m Beam: 12.5 m

Speed: 21.5 knots

Armament: 4 x 3”4 seaplanes

Complement: 197

ENGADINE

Drawn by Andy Brady © MOD 2016

The British Grand Fleet● ●♦

Cruisers ♦

Battlecruisers ♦

Dreadnoughts ♦

Armoured Cruisers ♦

Minelayer ♦♦ Seaplane Carrier ♦♦

Dreadnoughts ................................................... 28Battlecruisers .................................................... 9Armoured Cruisers ........................................... 8Cruisers ............................................................ 25Destroyers ........................................................ 79Minelayers ........................................................ 1Seaplane Carriers ............................................. 1

The German High Seas Fleet● ●♦

Destroyers♦

Cruisers♦

Dreadnoughts♦

Pre-Dreadnoughts♦

Battlecruisers♦

FRANKFURT, WIESBADEN (✠)

Displacement: 6,600 tonnesLength: 145.3 m Beam: 13.9 m

Speed: 28 knots

Armament: 8 x 5.9”, 2 x 3.5”torpedo tubes, 120 mines

Complement: 474

REGENSBURG

Displacement: 6,382 tonnesLength: 142.7 m Beam: 13.8 m

Speed: 28 knots

Armament: 7 x 5.9”, 2 x 3.5”torpedo tubes, 120 mines

Complement: 385

ROSTOCK (✠)

Displacement: 6,191 tonnesLength: 142.2 m Beam: 13.7 m

Speed: 29 knots

PILLAU, ELBING (✠)

Displacement: 5,252 tonnesLength: 135.3 m Beam: 13.6 m

Speed: 28 knots

Armament: 8 x 5.9”, 2 x 3.5”torpedo tubes, 120 mines

Complement: 441

Displacement: 28,600 tonnesLength: 175.4 m Beam: 29.5 m

Speed: 21 knots

Armament: 10 x 12”, 14 x 5.9”, 10 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,136

KÖNIG, GROSSER KURFÜRST, MARKGRAF, KRONPRINZ

Displacement: 27,000 tonnesLength: 172.4 m Beam: 29 m

Speed: 24 knots

Armament: 10 x 12”, 14 x 5.9”, 12 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,043

KAISER, FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE, KAISERIN, PRINZREGENT LUITPOLD

Displacement: 31,200 tonnesLength: 210.4 m Beam: 29 m

Speed: 27 knots

Armament: 8 x 12”, 12 x 5.9”, 4 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,112

DERFFLINGER, LÜTZOW (✠)

Displacement: 695 tonnesLength: 71.5 m Beam: 7.4 m

Speed: 32.5 knots

8 S13 TYPE

Displacement: 697 tonnesLength: 70.2 m Beam: 7.6 m

Speed: 32 knots

Armament: 2 x 3.5”18 mines, torpedoes

Complement: 74

6 V1 TYPE

Displacement: 975 tonnesLength: 78.5 m Beam: 8.3 m

Speed: 33.5 knots

Armament: 3 x 3.5”24 mines, torpedoes

Complement: 83

24 V25 TYPE (✠)

Displacement: 1,106 tonnesLength: 79.6 m Beam: 8.3 m

Speed: 34.5 knots

Armament: 3 x 3.5”24 mines, torpedoes

Complement: 87

4 V43 TYPE (✠)

Displacement: 775 tonnesLength: 73.9 m Beam: 7.9 m

Speed: 32 knots

Armament: 2 x 3.5”torpedoes

Complement: 84

2 V186 TYPE

Displacement: 28,550 tonnesLength: 200.6 m Beam: 28.5 m

Speed: 27 knots

Armament: 10 x 11”, 12 x 5.9”, 12 x 3.5”

Complement: 1,068

SEYDLITZ

Displacement: 14,218 tonnesLength: 127.6 m Beam: 22.2 m

Speed: 18 knots

Armament: 4 x 11”, 14 x 6.7”, 20 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 743

DEUTSCHLAND, POMMERN (✠), HANNOVER, SCHLESIEN, SCHLESWIG-HOLSTIEN

Pre-Dreadnoughts ............................................ 6Dreadnoughts ................................................... 16Battlecruisers .................................................... 5Cruisers ............................................................ 11Destroyers ........................................................ 61

FLEET MOVEMENTS

Scheer

Beatty Hipper

Jellicoe

NN

Areaof

Battle

Germany

Britain

France

13th Flotilla

Warspite(disabled)

Defender(disabled)

Acasta(disabled)

11th Flotilla

1st Light Cruiser Sqn

4th Light Cruiser Sqn

2nd Light Cruiser Sqn

3rd Light Cruiser Sqn

Battlecruisers

1st Battle Sqn

4th Battle Sqn

2nd Battle Sqn

5th Battle Sqn

4th Flotilla

2nd Cruiser Sqn

Invincible(sunk)

Battleships

1st Battle Sqn

HMS ColossusHMS CollingwoodHMS St. Vincent.HMS NeptuneHMS MarlboroughHMS RevengeHMS HerculesHMS Agincourt

2nd Battle Sqn

HMS King George VHMS AjaxHMS CenturionHMS ErinHMS OrionHMS MonarchHMS ConquerorHMS Thunderer

1st Light Cruiser Sqn

HMS GalateaHMS PhaetonHMS Inconstant.HMS Cordelia

2nd Light Cruiser Sqn

HMS SouthamptonHMS BirminghamHMS NottinghamHMS Dublin

3rd Light Cruiser Sqn

HMS FalmouthHMS YarmouthHMS BirkenheadHMS Gloucester

4th Light Cruiser Sqn

HMS CalliopeHMS ConstanceHMS ComusHMS CarolineHMS Royalist

Battlecruisers

HMS Lion

1st Battlecruiser Sqn

HMS Princess RoyalHMS Queen MaryHMS Tiger

2nd Battlecruiser Sqn

HMS New ZealandHMS Indefatigable

2nd Cruiser Sqn

HMS MinotaurHMS HampshireHMS ShannonHMS Cochrane

4th Destroyer Flotilla

HMS TipperaryHMS SpitfireHMS SparrowhawkHMS GarlandHMS ContestHMS OwlHMS HardyHMS MischiefHMS MidgeHMS Broke.HMS PorpoiseHMS UnityHMS AchatesHMS AmbuscadeHMS ArdentHMS Fortune

11th Destroyer Flotilla

HMS OssoryHMS MartialHMS MagicHMS MinionHMS MysticHMS MonsHMS MandateHMS MichaelHMS Kempenfelt.HMS MarneHMS MilbrookHMS MannersHMS MoonHMS MounseyHMS Morning Star

12th Destroyer Flotilla

HMS FaulknorHMS ObedientHMS MindfulHMS MarvelHMS OnslaughtHMS MaenadHMS NarwhalHMS NessusHMS NobleHMS MarksmanHMS OpalHMS NonsuchHMS MenaceHMS MunsterHMS Mary Rose

13th Destroyer Flotilla

HMS ObdurateHMS NerissaHMS TermagantHMS MoresbyHMS NestorHMS NomadHMS NicatorHMS OnslowHMS NarboroughHMS PelicanHMS PetardHMS Turbulent

4th Battle Sqn

HMS Iron DukeHMS Royal OakHMS SuperbHMS CanadaHMS BenbowHMS BellerophonHMS TemeraireHMS Vanguard

5th Battle Sqn

HMS BarhamHMS ValiantHMS WarspiteHMS Malaya.

BRITISH BATTLE FLEET DEPLOYMENT 7.00pm

Drawn by Andy Brady © MOD 2016

The German High Seas Fleet● ●♦

Destroyers ♦

Cruisers ♦

Dreadnoughts ♦

Pre-Dreadnoughts ♦

Battlecruisers ♦

MÜNCHEN, HAMBURG

Displacement: 3,780 tonnesLength: 111.1 m Beam: 13.3 m

Speed: 22 knots

Armament: 10 x 4.1”torpedo tubes

Complement: 288

FRAUENLOB (✠)

Displacement: 3,158 tonnesLength: 105 m Beam: 12.4 m

Speed: 22 knots

Armament: 10 x 4.1”torpedo tubes

Complement: 270

ROSTOCK (✠)

Displacement: 6,191 tonnesLength: 142.2 m Beam: 13.7 m

Speed: 29 knots

Armament: 12 x 4.1”torpedo tubes, 120 mines

Complement: 373

STETTIN, STUTTGART

Displacement: 3,814 tonnesLength: 115.3 m Beam: 13.2 m

Speed: 24 knots

Armament: 10 x 4.1”torpedo tubes

Complement: 322

Displacement: 25,400 tonnesLength: 186.6 m Beam: 29.4 m

Speed: 26 knots

Armament: 10 x 11”, 12 x 5.9”, 12 x 3.5”

Complement: 1,053

MOLTKE

Displacement: 24,700 tonnesLength: 167.2 m Beam: 28.5 m

Speed: 24 knots

Armament: 12 x 12”, 14 x 5.9”, 14 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,113

OSTFRIESLAND, THURINGEN, HELGOLAND, OLDENBURG

Displacement: 21,000 tonnesLength: 146.1 m Beam: 26.9 m

Speed: 20 knots

Armament: 12 x 11”, 12 x 5.9”, 16 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 1,003

NASSAU, WESTFALEN, RHEINLAND, POSEN

Displacement: 14,394 tonnesLength: 127.7 m Beam: 22.2 m

Speed: 18 knots

Armament: 4 x 11”, 14 x 6.7”, 14 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 743

HESSEN

Displacement: 21,300 tonnesLength: 171.7 m Beam: 26.6 m

Speed: 25 knots

Armament: 8 x 11”, 10 x 5.9”, 16 x 3.5”torpedo tubes

Complement: 923

VON DER TANN

Displacement: 719 tonnesLength: 71.5 m Beam: 7.6 m

Speed: 32 knots

Armament: 2 x 4”18 mines, torpedoes

Complement: 74

5 G7 TYPE

Displacement: 1,147 tonnesLength: 83 m Beam: 8.4 m

Speed: 33.5 knots

Armament: 3 x 4.1”24 mines, torpedoes

Complement: 87

3 G85 TYPE

Displacement: 1,116 tonnesLength: 95.3 m Beam: 9.3 m

Speed: 33.5 knots

Armament: 3 x 3.5”24 mines, torpedoesComplement: 104

4 G101 TYPE

Armament: 2 x 3.5”18 mines, torpedoes

Complement: 74

8 S13 TYPE

Displacement: 1,843 tonnesLength: 98 m Beam: 9.4 m

Speed: 36.5 knots

Armament: 4 x 4.1”24 mines, torpedoesComplement: 114

6 B97 TYPE

Pre-Dreadnoughts ............................................ 6Dreadnoughts ................................................... 16Battlecruisers .................................................... 5Cruisers ............................................................ 11Destroyers ........................................................ 61

www.navynews.co.uk

Beatty:7.17

Jellicoe :8.20

Scheer fightsBeatty: 8.20

Scheer:9.00

Beatty:9.00

Jellicoe turns:9.00

Hipper joinsScheer:

5 40

Scheer chasingBeatty:

5.30

Scheer turns:6.55

Scheerfights

Jellicoe :7.17

Beatty:6.35

Jellicoe turns South:6.30

Jellicoe forms line: 6.16

Jellicoe :5.40

6.16Beatty searches

for Jellicoe: 5.40

N

6.35

MAIN FLEET ENGAGEMENT

Hipper: 3.31

Hipper opens fire:3.48

4.06

4.42

Hipper :5.30

Scheer:4.42

Scheer:5.30

Scheer:5.30

Beatty sights Hipper:3.31

Beatty opens fire:3.48

Indefatigable sunk :4.06

Queen Mary sunk :4.26

Beatty:5.30

Beatty:4.47

Beatty sights Scheer :Turns 4.26

15,500yds

4.47N

BATTLECRUISER ENGAGEMENT

German High Seas FleetShips ................................ 99 Weight of broadside ......... 60,879 kgSailors killed ................... 2,551Sailors wounded .............. 507Tonnage sunk .................. 62,300 tonnesPre-Dreadnoughts ............ 1Battlecruisers ................... 1Cruisers ........................... 4Destroyers ....................... 5Heavy shells fired ............. 3,597Hits .................................. 122

British Grand FleetShips ................................ 151Weight of broadside ........ 150,760 kgSailors killed ................... 6,094Sailors wounded .............. 674Tonnage sunk .................. 113,300 tonnesBattlecruiser .................... 3Armoured cruisers ........... 3Destroyers ....................... 8Heavy shells fired ............ 4,534Hits .................................. 123

German lossesSMS V48SMS V27SMS ElbingSMS FrauenlobSMS LützowSMS PommernSMS RostockSMS Wiesbaden

British lossesHMS ArdentHMS Black PrinceHMS DefenceHMS FortuneHMS IndefatigableHMS InvincibleHMS NestorHMS NomadHMS Queen MaryHMS SharkHMS SparrowhawkHMS TipperaryHMS TurbulentHMS Warrior